ABC News reports that Jennifer Stefano of Pennsylvania wanted to start a tea party group, but dealing with the IRS “was frightening and that’s why I shut it down. I shut my group down.”

The IRS ordered an Ohio group to answer 35 detailed questions, including to “provide a listing of all your past activities. Indicate the percentage of your time spent conducting the activity (total of all activities should equal 100%) and the percentage of your funds spent conducting the activity (total of all activities should equal 100%).”

In Tennessee, Kevin Kookogey was trying to start an educational group called Linchpins of Liberty to teach the economic principles of Milton Friedman and Adam Smith. When he inquired with the IRS in 2011 about the delay in his tax-exempt status, he was told: “We have been waiting on guidance from our superiors as to your and similar organizations.” He is still waiting.

In Virginia, it took Richmond Tea Party President Larry Nordvig two and a half years to get tax-exempt status. He tellsThe Washington Post the wait had “a very chilling effect” on how much money his group could raise, and thus on how much speech it could generate.

How many groups are under scrutiny? That remains to be seen. President Obama said yesterday that the IRS’s actions were “intolerable and inexcusable” and that “regardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong.”

Our federal government was designed to be a neutral arbiter between competing private interests that would protect our liberties. Instead, it has morphed into a permanent interest group of its own.

In some ways, it’s almost as if we’ve disappointed our government by questioning it. As Bertolt Brecht quipped about the late, unlamented East Germany:

The people had forfeited the confidence of the government and could win it back only by redoubled efforts.

So here’s a charge to all tea partiers, and indeed all “patriotic” Americans of any political bent: Let’s redouble our efforts—to limit government and promote freedom.

Doing so may anger Big Brother, but it will protect the liberty of all Americans.